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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Wages \Wa"ges\ (w[=a]"j[e^]z), n. plural in termination, but
singular in signification. [Plural of wage; cf. F. gages,
pl., wages, hire. See {Wage}, n.]
1. A compensation given to a hired person for services; price
paid for labor; recompense; hire. See {Wage}, n., 2.
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The wages of sin is death. --Rom. vi. 23.
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2. (Economics) The share of the annual product or national
dividend which goes as a reward to labor, as distinct from
the remuneration received by capital in its various forms.
This economic or technical sense of the word wages is
broader than the current sense, and includes not only
amounts actually paid to laborers, but the remuneration
obtained by those who sell the products of their own work,
and the wages of superintendence or management, which are
earned by skill in directing the work of others.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]

{Wages fund} (Polit. Econ.), the aggregate capital existing
at any time in any country, which theoretically is
unconditionally destined to be paid out in wages. It was
formerly held, by Mill and other political economists,
that the average rate of wages in any country at any time
depended upon the relation of the wages fund to the number
of laborers. This theory has been greatly modified by the
discovery of other conditions affecting wages, which it
does not take into account. --Encyc. Brit.
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Syn: See under {Wage}, n.
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